It was a Saturday afternoon in the fall of 1993. My mom was out of town and it was up to my dad find an activity which all three of his children would enjoy. The Anne Frank Museum was traveling around the US and happened to be in St. Paul for a couple months. Being the history-lover that my dad is, he used that Saturday as an opportunity to educate his three children on WWII. Or, in my case, introduce Anne Frank and the Holocaust to his youngest child, who was in 3rd grade.
We spent the afternoon looking at the exhibit. My siblings, who were 12 and 13 at the time, went ahead of my dad and me. This was probably because I wouldn’t or couldn’t stop asking questions.
“Who is Anne Frank?”
"What are Nazi's?"
"Why didn’t someone stop them?"
"What's an Annex?"
“Where’s Amsterdam?”
"Why did they hate the Jews'?”
I had questions growing out of my ears; you get the just of it.
After a few hours, and my very patient father who was trying his best to explain an unexplainable event to his 8 year old daughter, we left the exhibit and went into the bookstore.
I remember walking though the first couple rows when my dad picked up a book, flipped though it and handed it to me.
"Here's a good one, Hunny Bunny." he said.
And it was.
As I waited for the rest of my family to finish picking out what they wanted, I opened my book. I opened my book and it changed my life.
Seriously.
I have a theory of why I am so passionate about studying and educating others about the Holocaust.I was introduced to the unthinkable facts of the Holocaust when curiosity and questions consumed my life. Before this exhibit, most of the books I had read were fictional. With fictional characters.
There are no characters while reading about the Holocaust. There are only real Human Beings.
As an 8 year old girl, my reading consisted of books that were mainly 'series' oriented. There was the usual Boxcar Children, The Baby-Sitter's Club, Beezus and Ramona, Superfudge, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, etc...
After I read Anne Frank I realized that there could not be a sequel or 'series' that would follow her story of hiding in annexes or her many adventures.
Anne had died.
My curiosity of the Holocaust had come to life.
